Cameroon Social Media Ban Sees Proton VPN Signups Skyrocket by 3,000%
Cameroon authorities blocked TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Telegram and other platforms on Oct. 23 amid post‑election protests, prompting a 3,000% spike in new Proton VPN sign‑ups from the country. The Swiss‑based provider recorded Cameroon among its top five markets for free VPN usage and responded by adding eight new exit nodes routed through France and the UK via its Smart Routing feature. Premium access was made affordable with a $1‑for‑a‑month offer, while free users retain access to global servers. The move underscores the population’s turn to VPNs to bypass state‑imposed censorship and maintain internet connectivity.
OpenAI Says It Has over a Million Business Customers Using ChatGPT - and It Isn't Stopping There
OpenAI announced it has surpassed one million paying business customers worldwide, calling it the fastest‑growing business platform in history. The clientele spans finance, healthcare, retail and more, with notable use cases such as Indeed’s AI‑driven hiring boost (20% more applications, 13%...
Microsoft Apologizes to 365 Users over Confusing Software Tiers
Microsoft apologized to customers in six APAC countries after the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission sued the firm for steering Microsoft 365 users toward pricier Copilot‑enabled plans without clearly presenting the cheaper Classic option. The company admitted its communications could have...
SonicWall Blames State Hackers for Damaging Data Breach
SonicWall confirmed that a state‑sponsored threat actor accessed its MySonicWall cloud backup service via an API call, compromising backup files for up to 500,000 customers worldwide. The breach, initially reported as affecting fewer than 5% of clients, was later said...
Why It's Now so Hip to Go Analog and How AI Is the Antithesis of That
The article notes a cultural resurgence of analog media—cassette tapes, disposable cameras, rotary phones—as a reaction against AI‑generated content, arguing that AI’s polished, inoffensive output lacks the texture, mistakes, and humanity that make art memorable. It contrasts AI’s speed and...
Data Is the New Geopolitical Fault Line
Data is increasingly being treated as a strategic, monetizable asset that shapes national strategy, economic growth, and AI capability, prompting governments, AI firms, and enterprises to seek controlled access. Companies that succeed adopt a product‑mindset, offer variable consumption models, abstract...
China Offers Alibaba and Other Domestic Giants Half-Price Data Center Energy if It Picks Chips From Huawei over Nvidia
China is reportedly offering electricity subsidies that could cut data‑center power costs by up to 50% for domestic cloud giants such as Alibaba, ByteDance and Tencent, provided they run AI workloads on locally produced chips from Huawei, Cambricon and other...
Well, that Is Awkward - MIT Sloan Forced to Withdraw "Absolutely Ridiculous" Paper Claiming AI Played "Significant Role" In Most...
MIT Sloan School of Management withdrew a working paper that claimed AI was involved in 80.83% of recorded ransomware attacks after leading security researchers denounced the figures as unfounded. Critics, including Kevin Beaumont and Marcus Hutchins, highlighted methodological flaws and...
You Can Now Rent a $3000 Nvidia RTX 5090 GPU From Just $0.25/hour, when You Need It, for as Long...
Developers and AI researchers can now rent Nvidia's flagship RTX 5090 GPU on a pay‑as‑you‑go basis, with the cheapest offering from SaladCloud at $0.25 per hour for a 32 GB instance. Competing marketplaces list similar cards at $0.32‑$0.63 per hour, with daily...
Chat Control Isn’t Dead, Denmark Has a New Proposal − Here’s All We Know
Denmark has scrapped a draft law that would have forced all messaging services in the EU to scan every URL, image and video for child sexual abuse material, replacing it with a compromise that makes CSAM scanning voluntary but leaves...
Microsoft Teams Really Could Be Bad for Your (Security) Health - Hackers Spoof Bosses, Send Fake Messages, and More
Check Point Research uncovered a series of Microsoft Teams flaws (CVE‑2024‑38197) that let attackers edit previously sent messages without an “Edited” tag, spoof mobile and desktop notifications, and alter displayed names in private chats and call invitations. The vulnerabilities could...
Microsoft Strengthens Its In-Country Data Processing Push with More Sovereignty Options
Microsoft announced it will extend in‑country data processing for its Copilot AI to 15 additional markets by the end of 2026, adding Canada, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UAE and the US, while Australia, India,...
Millions of Developers Could Be Open to Attack After Critical Flaw Exploited - Here's What We Know
A critical‑severity flaw (CVE‑2025‑11953) was discovered in the @react-native-community/cli npm package, which powers the Metro development server for React Native apps. The vulnerability enables unauthenticated OS command injection via a POST request, allowing attackers to run arbitrary binaries on Windows,...
The Largest AI Security Risks Aren't in Code, They're in Culture
The article argues that the biggest AI security risks stem from organizational culture rather than code flaws, as unclear ownership, undocumented updates, and fragmented decision‑making erode resilience. It highlights that existing regulations like the UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill...
ChatGPT Memories Are Disappearing for some Users – Here’s What You Can Do to Protect Yours
Several ChatGPT users have reported that their saved "memories"—personalized data such as allergies or location—have vanished from the Manage Memory panel, with the issue appearing across desktop, mobile, and web apps. The problem has not been acknowledged on OpenAI’s status...
AI's Biggest Blind Spot Isn't Politics, It's Your Health
A large‑scale HUMAINE study of over 40,000 anonymized conversations in the US and UK found that health and wellbeing topics dominate AI usage, with nearly half of chats focused on fitness, nutrition, mental health, and medical conditions. Contrary to expectations,...
Most Admins Say They Need a Major Overhaul of Data in Order to Succeed with AI
Salesforce data shows 76% of business leaders feel pressure to deliver value with data, yet 84% say their strategies need a complete overhaul to succeed with AI. Poor data quality leads 49% of data leaders to sometimes reach incorrect conclusions,...
Android Lovers Finally Get Their Taste of the Sora App, and Now We'll See Twice as Much AI Slop
OpenAI has launched its Sora AI video generation app on Android, expanding from an iOS debut that amassed over a million downloads in five days. The app offers a TikTok‑style feed of AI‑generated clips, a Cameo tool for personal videos,...
AI Tools Are Proving to Be a Massive Help for Financial Firms - but for How Long?
New Xero research shows UK accountancy firms have lifted profits by £338 million and added £10 billion to GDP after adopting AI, with 98% of firms now using the technology. Finance workers spend an average of three hours per day on AI,...
Acer Reveals Its Fanciest Chromebook yet - but Will It Be Enough to Convince Your IT Team to Upgrade You?
Acer announced the Chromebook Plus Enterprise 714 and 514, two 14‑inch ChromeOS laptops aimed at cloud‑first enterprises. The 714 is powered by Intel Core Ultra 5, the 514 can be configured up to an Intel Core 7, both with up to 16 GB LPDDR5X, PCIe Gen4 SSDs,...
Kim Kardashian Blames ChatGPT for Low Law Class Test Scores – Even as OpenAI Dismisses a Rumored Ban of Legal...
Kim Kardashian revealed she relied on ChatGPT for law‑school study and exams, only to fail several tests after the AI gave inaccurate answers. Her admission coincided with circulating rumors that OpenAI had restricted ChatGPT from providing legal and medical advice,...
OpenAI and AWS Team up in Potentially One of the Biggest Tech Partnerships Ever Seen - so What Will It...
OpenAI and Amazon Web Services have sealed a multi‑year partnership valued at $38 billion, granting OpenAI direct access to AWS’s high‑performance compute, including Nvidia‑based GPUs and EC2 UltraServers, with full deployment targeted by the end of 2026. The deal expands the...
Nvidia Is Building an "AI Megafactory" For Samsung with 50,000 GPUs - Could This Be the Start of a New...
Samsung announced an "AI Megafactory" that will deploy more than 50,000 Nvidia GPUs and the Omniverse platform to embed artificial‑intelligence across its semiconductor, mobile and robotics operations. By leveraging Nvidia's cuLitho, CUDA‑X and GPU‑accelerated EDA tools, Samsung says it can...
Microsoft Is Finally Clamping Down on Scam Attacks with New "Scareware" Sensor - Here's What You Need to Know
Microsoft is rolling out its Scareware blocker across Edge on Windows and macOS, enabled by default on devices with at least 2 GB RAM and four CPU cores. The AI‑driven, on‑device computer‑vision model detects deceptive full‑screen scam pages that mimic virus...
Fitbit Still Has a Place in the Smartwatch Era – Just Look at the Apple Watch SE 3
Google announced that new Fitbit devices will launch next year, coinciding with a refreshed Fitbit app that now includes an AI‑driven personal health coach for Premium users. While past years saw feature cuts, discontinued third‑party apps, and a shift toward...
The Firm Behind One of the Best Business VPNs Around Is Launching a Gen AI Tool - Here's What It...
Proton, the Swiss firm behind Proton Mail and Proton VPN, has introduced Lumo for Business, a gener‑ative AI assistant built on zero‑access encryption that ensures only users can decrypt their conversations. The service integrates with Proton Drive, is hosted in...
One of the Most Devious Malware Strains Might Have Been Cracked - and It's All Thanks to Gen AI
Check Point Research used generative AI, specifically ChatGPT, to semi‑automate the reverse‑engineering of the evasive XLoader infostealer, a malware family active since 2021 and derived from Formbook. By coupling cloud‑based static analysis of IDA Pro outputs with AI‑assisted runtime debugging, the...
I Spent a Week with the Samsung Galaxy XR and Apple's Vision Pro Has Nothing to Worry About – Yet
Samsung’s new Galaxy XR mixed‑reality headset retails for $1,799 – roughly half the price of Apple’s Vision Pro – and offers a lighter, more comfortable form factor built around a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chipset, 16 GB RAM and a 3552 × 3840 dual...
ChatGPT Go Is Now Free in India – and U.S. Users Are Wondering if They’re Next
OpenAI has launched a 12‑month free promotion for ChatGPT Go, its lower‑priced, lightweight alternative to ChatGPT Plus, exclusively for users in India. The service bundles extended GPT‑5 access, image generation, file uploads, advanced data analysis and longer memory, though it offers fewer...
Microsoft Warns a Key OpenAI API Is Being Exploited to Launch Cyberattacks
Microsoft’s incident‑response team has identified a new malware family, SesameOp, that abuses OpenAI’s Assistants API as a covert command‑and‑control channel. The backdoor stores and retrieves encrypted commands and exfiltrated data via the API, enabling long‑term persistence for espionage‑type operations. Microsoft...
Is Your Business Prepared for These Growing Phishing Scams?
Phishing attacks have evolved in 2025, leveraging AI to produce flawless personalized emails, deep‑fake voice and video calls, SIM‑swap fraud, and Phishing‑as‑a‑Service kits that can bypass traditional defenses. While 91% of attacks still originate via email, criminals are expanding to...
Microsoft Is Investing $15.2 Billion in the UAE to Expand AI and Cloud Operations
Microsoft announced a $15.2 billion investment in the United Arab Emirates through 2029, adding $7.9 billion to the $7.3 billion already spent on equity, capex and operating costs. About $5.5 billion will fund AI and cloud infrastructure, including the deployment of roughly 81,900 Nvidia...
Missed a Crucial Google Meet Call? You Can Now Catch up Easily in Chat
Google is adding tighter integration between Meet and Chat for Workspace business and enterprise customers, automatically capturing messages, links, emoji reactions and shared files from a Meet call into the associated Chat thread. The feature, which also brings Chat’s emoji...
The Nano Banana Camera Will Let You Edit Photos in Real Time Using Just Your Voice, and I Can’t Wait...
Caira, the new Nano Banana camera from Camera Intelligence, is a Micro Four Thirds mirrorless body that magnetically attaches to an iPhone via MagSafe and streams photos directly to the iPhone’s Photos app. It features a 4/3" Sony dual‑native ISO sensor,...
5 AI Tools to Get Your SMB Online Fast
Owain Williams outlines five AI-driven solutions that enable small‑and‑medium businesses to launch a full online presence rapidly: AI website builders (e.g., Wix, Hostinger, Squarespace) that auto‑generate templates and copy; AI content writers such as CopyAI and HubSpot for bulk page...
Zoom Is Building a Major New Data Center in the UK
Zoom announced it will build its own data centre in the United Kingdom, slated to open in the first half of 2026. The facility will host the full suite of Zoom services—including Meetings, Webinars, Rooms, Team Chat, Phone, Notes, Docs...
Microsoft's AI Boss Is Right: Sentient AI Fantasies Aren't Just Impossible, They're Irrelevent
Microsoft AI co‑founder Mustafa Suleyman told AfroTech that the quest for sentient or conscious AI is a misguided question, arguing that current models lack any mechanism for subjective experience. He emphasized that AI should be built as practical tools, not...
I Want to See Apple, Samsung, and Google Make Phone Cameras Exciting Again
The author laments that flagship phone cameras—iPhone 17 Pro, Google Pixel 10 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra—have reached a point of diminishing returns, offering only incremental improvements in sensor size and computational photography. While recent models from Oppo and Xiaomi show occasional flashes of creativity, such as detachable...
Microsoft Introduces 'Ask Copilot' Box to Windows 11's Taskbar – but only if You Want AI There
Microsoft announced an opt‑in "Ask Copilot" box for the Windows 11 taskbar in the latest preview build (26220.7051) for Beta and Dev channels. The feature replaces the traditional search box with an AI‑powered input that can surface files, apps, and suggest queries,...
Younger Workers Are Skipping Meetings - and Trusting AI to Take Notes for Them
Younger workers, particularly Gen Z, are turning to AI note‑taking tools instead of attending meetings, with 19% of all workers and 26% of hybrid employees using them frequently, compared with 13% of in‑person staff. The Software Finder study links frequent...
The Fitbit Inspire 3 Is Now Under $70, Including Six Months of Fitbit Premium – Which Also Includes a New...
Fitbit’s entry‑level Inspire 3 has been slashed to $69.95 on Amazon, a $30 drop from its regular $99.95 price, and now bundles six months of Fitbit Premium at no extra cost. The tracker offers continuous heart‑rate monitoring, sleep analysis, Active Zone Minutes...
OpenAI Wants Your Next Security Researcher to Be a Bot - New Aardvark Tool Finds and Fixes Software Flaws Automatically
OpenAI has launched Aardvark, an autonomous AI agent built on ChatGPT that scans code, runs tests and proposes patches to fix software vulnerabilities at scale. In private‑beta testing the tool achieved a 92% success rate on benchmark “golden” repositories, and...
Beware - Ransomware Gang Is Tricking Victims with Fake Microsoft Teams Ads
Security researchers at Expel have uncovered a new ransomware distribution campaign by the Rhysida gang that uses spoofed Microsoft Teams ads on Bing to lure victims to counterfeit download pages. The pages deploy two loader malware families, OysterLoader and Latrodectus,...
I Put Napster View AI on My MacBook Pro, and I'm Now Convinced No One Needs This Much Face Time
Napster View is a $99 hardware add‑on for M1‑based MacBooks that projects a circular holographic screen above the laptop, housing AI‑driven avatars that act as a “digital team” of specialists and can even create a personal digital twin. The system integrates...
Adobe Warns Workforces Risk Being Left Behind without Creative and AI Skills
Adobe’s latest research shows 19% of UK workers feel they lack the creative and digital skills needed for an AI‑driven future, while 65% of job seekers consider AI expertise essential for landing their ideal role. A third of hiring managers...
AI Belongs to Humanity, Not Superpowers
Professor Himanshu Tyagi critiques Donald Trump’s AI Action Plan, arguing that deregulation and a nationalist competition mindset misinterpret how AI advances. He stresses that AI’s progress depends on global talent, open‑source collaboration and diverse data, citing that immigrants founded 55 % of...
Five Ways to Build a Data Foundation that Actually Lasts
The article outlines five essential strategies for creating a durable data foundation that powers AI, beginning with unifying customer identities across systems to eliminate fragmented profiles. It stresses the need for clean, up‑to‑date data to prevent AI failures, recommends a...
The Rise of Agentic AI in Cybersecurity
Agentic AI, autonomous systems that can reason, adapt and act without constant prompting, is poised to become a major disruptor in cybersecurity, with forecasts that one‑third of enterprise applications will embed such agents by 2028. The technology promises to alleviate...
Windows 11 Is Finally Getting a Handy Bluetooth Headphone Sharing Feature for some – Here's How It Works
Microsoft has rolled out a preview of a new "shared audio" feature in Windows 11 (build 26220.7051) that lets two Bluetooth LE Audio headsets receive the same sound stream from a single PC. The capability is accessed via a Quick Settings tile and...
Google Has a New Experimental DeepMind AI Tool to Help Your SMB Scale Marketing Fast
Google Labs, in partnership with DeepMind, has launched Pomelli, an experimental AI marketing platform aimed at small and medium‑size businesses. The tool builds a brand profile from a company’s website, then suggests custom campaign ideas and generates on‑brand assets that...
